Mother has last visit with condemned son

A distressed Kim Nguyen, the mother of convicted drug smuggler Nguyen Tuong Van, has left Changi Prison after seeing her son for the last time before he is hanged.

With her head fully covered with a scarf, Ms Nguyen was supported on both arms by consular staff and Melbourne lawyer Julian McMahon as she left the Singapore jail on Thursday night.

Nguyen's best friends Kelly Ng and Bronwyn Lew were also led to cars accompanied by Nguyen's lawyer Lex Lasry, QC.

Both girls had been crying.

Nguyen will be executed at 6am (0900 AEDT) on Friday after all calls for clemency were denied.

He was convicted of drug smuggling after being found with almost 400 grams of heroin at Changi Airport in December 2002.

An Australian lawyer had issued a private prosecution against Nguyen in a last-ditch bid to prevent his execution.

Melbourne lawyer Brian Walters, SC, said the charges could allow the federal government to seek Nguyen's extradition from Singapore to Australia.

But the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions (OPP) said it will not press the charges.

In a statement, the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions, Paul Coghlan, said: "The Victorian OPP will not request the commonwealth attorney-general to seek the extradition of Nguyen Tuong Van from Singapore on the basis that there is insufficient material on which to make such a request."

Ms Nguyen had spent several hours with her son after she arrived at the prison gates at 12.35pm local time (3.35pm AEDT) for her final visit looking drained and tired.

Singapore authorities earlier said Ms Nguyen would be able to hold hands with her son during her last visit.

The city-state's officials said they would grant an exemption from a total ban on physical contact with death row inmates.

Ms Nguyen had asked to be able to hug her son one final time before he is executed.

But in a statement, the Singapore government said it would allow only limited physical contact between the condemned man and his mother and brother Khoa.

"Mr Nguyen will be allowed to hold hands with his mother and brother," said the statement from Singapore's ministry of foreign affairs.

It said it had agreed to the request for contact following a personal appeal by Prime Minister John Howard to his Singaporean counterpart, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta.

The statement said that like many jurisdictions that authorise capital punishment, Singapore did not allow "contact" visits between prisoners and family members.

"Such encounters can be traumatic and are likely to destabilise the prisoners and their family members," it said.

M Ravi, a human rights lawyer who has worked on death penalty cases and campaigned to save Nguyen, said he could not fathom Singapore's decision.

"To say you can't hug is abominable. I am lost for words," he told AAP in Singapore.

"How can you just restrict it to the hand and not have bodily contact?"

Pressure on Singapore to allow a contact visit before Nguyen's execution had gathered strength in recent days, with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer lobbying the Singaporean government.

Nguyen's lawyer, Lex Lasry, QC, had said it would be inhumane if Singapore did not allow Kim Nguyen to hug her son one last time.

"It's inconceivable that there could be any valid reason why that wouldn't happen," he said ahead of Singapore's announcement.

Mr Lasry, who also visited Nguyen, said it was a highly emotional goodbye and the case had been one of the hardest he has had to deal with.

"It's the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my career," he told The 7.30 Report.

"There's nothing that comes anywhere near it and I've been in emotional circumstances like all lawyers, particularly criminal lawyers, and there are times when the emotions are very much of the limit."

He said he would take on other death penalty cases in memory of Nguyen.

"The opportunity to be involved in other death penalty cases, I'd readily take it on.

"Apart from anything else, in his memory, and inspired by his courage. It would be great to be able to tell his story to other people."

Mr Lasry said Nguyen's case had given other young Australians and people around the world a message about the dangers of the lure of earning a "fast buck".

"He's become, in my view, a beacon for young people who might be tempted to be exploited in this way to overcome both the temptation and to transform their lives."

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